Before we start talking about tracking events in Google Analytics, let’s take a step back and first discuss what an event is.
An event is a custom tag that can be added to elements on your website to track user behavior details in Google Analytics. Some of the behaviors you can track with an event are:
Downloading a PDF
Playing a video
Clicking an outbound link
Submitting a form
Clicking a social share button
Clicking a click-to-call phone number
Adding events allows you to get a clear picture of the interactions that matter most to you.
Events are used to track custom behaviors on your website. If instead, you’re looking to track custom acquisition sources look into UTM tags.
This information is all specific to the Universal Analytics version of Google Analytics. There is now a newer version, GA4. And in GA4 they completely changed how events work. Literally everything in GA4 is tracked with events and there are a few different types of events. You can view more information about GA4 events in the article that outlines the differences in GA4.
Step 1: Make sure you have Google Analytics set up
The first step to implement Google Analytics events, is to configure Google Analytics on your website. Once you’ve done that you’ll be ready to tackle the events.
Step 2: Configure Events
Before we dig into the technical details on how to configure an event, let’s first discuss the components of an event. An event can include a category, action, label, and value.
Category
The category is the parent group you would like to classify the event in. Some examples of common categories would be Videos, Outbound Links, and Downloads.
Action
The action is the type of interaction the user took to trigger the event. Some examples of common actions would be click and play.
Label
The label is the specific identifier for the event. This is an optional field but I would recommend using it whenever possible. This field will help identify the unique campaign used to trigger the event. An example of a label would be Spring 2019 Email Newsletter.
Value
The value is the numeric value associated with the event. This is another optional field. This doesn’t always apply but is worth using when you are able to associate a number value with the event.
Non-Interaction (True or False)
You can choose how you want an event to affect bounce rate. By default, this value is false meaning that the event does count as an interaction. When it is an interaction, if the user lands on the page, clicks a button with an event, and then immediately leaves the site that will not be counted as a bounce because that user interacted. However, if you set non-interaction to true that same experience would be counted as a bounce and your bounce rate would increase.
You can configure your events either by using Google Tag Manager, or setting them up manually. I would recommend using the same method you used to configure Google Analytics.
To Configure Events with Google Tag Manager
Confirm the variables you need are enabled
Click Variables and then under Built-In Variables click Configure. Ensure that Event is clicked under the Utilities menu. Then, click the variables you’d like to track.
The variables you want to enable will vary depending on what you want to track. Try to enable only what you need.
Here are some of the most common variables you’d want to use:
Clicks
Click Classes
This will allow you to track click events based on the CSS class. (We’ll go over how to identify a class later in the article.) This is useful to track elements where a group of items you want to track all include the same class such as downloading PDF resources.
Click ID
This will allow you to track click events based on the CSS ID. (We’ll go over how to identify an ID later in the article.) This is useful to track unique elements such as clicking a social share button or click-to-call link.
Click URL
This will allow you to track events based on the URL. This can be helpful to track outbound links.
Forms
Form Classes
This will allow you to track forms based on the CSS class.
Form ID
This will allow you to track forms based on the CSS ID.
Scroll
If you want to track scroll depth as an event enable all of the scroll variables. Scroll depth will allow you to track how far a user scrolls up or down the page either based on pixels or a percentage.
Videos
If you want to track videos you’ll want to enable all of these variables.
Create a new tag
Go to Tags and click New.
Click in the Tag Configuration box to edit.
Select Google Analytics – Universal Analytics.
Under Track Type select Event.
Then you enter in your category, action, label, and value. For each of these you can either enter in a static value or you can click the icon on the right of the field to enter in a variable.
Choose if you want Non-Interaction Hit to be True or False. If it is false then the event will affect your bounce rate. If it is true than the event will not count as an interaction and therefore will not have an effect on your bounce rate. Leaving this at false is most common.
Under Google Analytics Settings select your Google Analytics tracking variable.
Next, click in the Triggering box to edit. This is where you’ll identify how to target the element you want to target as your event.
If you’ve already created your trigger select it from the list. Otherwise, click the ‘+’ icon in the top right to create a new trigger.
When creating a new trigger, click in the Trigger Configuration box to edit.
Select how you want to trigger your event. You will most likely want to use a trigger under Click or User Engagement.
To track a click event select Click – All Elements.
Then select Some Clicks under This trigger fires on.
Then choose the variable you want to use to identify your target such as Click Classes or Click ID.
Save and name your trigger.
Save and name your tag.
Not sure how to find a CSS class or ID on your website to use in the trigger?
You can find this information out by viewing your website in the chrome browser.
Navigate to the element you want to track on your website in the Google Chrome browser.
Right click on the element and click Inspect.
This jumps you to the part of the website code that controls that particular element. Look at the highlighted code. If the element has a class you will see class="ClassName". If it has an ID you will see id="IDname". The name in quotes is what you’ll use for your trigger (ClassName or IDname in this example).
Publish your new tag
Now all you have to do is publish your changes to your website.
Click the Submit button in the top right.
Name your version and add a short description if you’d like.
Then, click Publish to set your changes live.
Manually Setting up Google Analytics Events
Adding an onclick event
If you want to add a Google Analytics event directly to a hyperlink anchor tag you’ll want to add it as an onclick event. A hyperlink anchor tag looks like this: <a href="link">link here</a>.
To add a Google Analytics event to the link you can add an onclick event.
If this was your original link:
<a href="link">link here</a>
This is what it would look like with the onclick event:
To know how to add the event details to your onclick event you’ll need to know if you’re using Google Analytics Classic, Universal, or the gtag.js tracking code. The code varies slightly for each.
How do I know which version of the Google Analytics tracking code is on my website?
To find out which version of Google Analytics tracking you’re using:
Go to your website.
Right click and select View page source.
Press ctrl (cmd) + F to open the find menu.
Search for the various tags.
Search for ga.js. If you find a reference to this you are using the Classic tracking.
Search for analytics.js. If you find a reference to this you are using Universal tracking.
Search for gtag.js. If you find a reference to this you are using the gtag.js tracking code.
How to add a manual event when you can’t edit the hyperlink
If you can’t edit the link to add an onclick event, you can target the link using jQuery. jQuery is a javascript library designed to simplify implementation.
Using jQuery, you can add an event listener to add a Google Analytics event. This is more complicated but it works great when you can’t directly edit the link.
Unless you’re already familiar with jQuery or javascript I wouldn’t recommend this route. Instead, I would recommend installing Google Tag Manager and set your events up that way.
Google Tag Manager provides several ways to target a link (by CSS class, CSS ID, URL, or even link text) and will make both implementation and maintenance much easier.
Best Practices for Google Analytics Events
Use a Consistent Naming Convention
To make the most use out of your event data make sure you use a consistent naming convention. If you want to be able to easily compare the performance of various campaigns under the same category then make sure that category has the same name for each campaign (label).
This means use the same spacing and capitalization too. Any change will display as an additional row in Google Analytics instead of grouping the data together.
Create a Spreadsheet for Multiple Contributors
If you plan to have multiple people creating events (or even if you just want to make it easier on yourself) create a spreadsheet. Keep track of your category names and actions.
With documentation in place all you have to do is copy and paste when you want to create a new campaign in an existing category. This will help avoid duplicate categories due to type-os, plural, or capitalization issues.
Navigate to Admin and then click Goals under View.
Click on New Goal.
Name your goal.
Under Type select Event.
Click Continue.
Add the conditions that meet your requirements. You can specify all parameters (category, action, and label) or you can just choose to trigger your goal based on one.
Click Save and your new goal is ready.
Step 4: Testing
Use Real-Time Reports to Test Your New Event (and Goal)
Once everything is configured, test your work and make sure everything reports how you expect.
The best way to test events and goals is to use the real-time reports. Navigate to Real-Time to view the data in Google Analytics. Then, click on Events to test your events or Conversions to test your goals.
The view defaults to Active Users. To make it easier to view your various tests click Events (Last 30 min) or Goal Hits (Last 30 min).
Now, test by going to your website and clicking on the element you have set up to trigger the goal or event.
If you have your internal IP filtered out your data won’t be tracked in Google Analytics. To ensure your test isn’t being blocked by anything I test on a mobile device. Make sure your WiFi is turned off so you are using data and not on your standard IP address.
If everything is configured correctly you should see the event or goal trigger in your real-time reports.
Step 5: Viewing Data in Google Analytics
Of course, all of this effort will be wasted if you don’t review the data in Google Analytics.
To review your event data navigate to Behavior > Events. Both the Overview and Top Events reports provide great insight into event performance.
On the Top Events report you can easily toggle between category, action, and label as the primary dimension.
To review your goal data navigate to Conversions > Goals > Overview. This report provides insight into your goal performance.
Remember to review this data. Tracking the data is great, but it’s pointless if you never review it.
Are you tracking events in Google Analytics? Do you have any implementation tips or best practices? Share them in the comments!
You’ve probably heard the term sitemap, but what is a sitemap? A sitemap is a file on your website where you provide information about all of the pages on your website. This file could be intended for people to navigate your website or could be intended for search engines.
Adding a sitemap as a link in your footer for people to navigate your site is an outdated practice. It isn’t a great experience for anyone, so that shouldn’t be your plan. Don’t expect people to search through links on your sitemap to find the content they need. Focus on optimizing your main site navigation instead. This will be more beneficial for your website and your website visitors.
However, adding a sitemap for search engines is completely different and worthwhile. These sitemaps are called XML sitemaps. They help search engines, such as Google, index the pages on your website. This is the type of sitemap we’ll be discussing in this article.
Do I need a sitemap?
Sitemaps are especially important for new sites with few external backlinks. It’s also helpful for pages with no internal links. Without links, it can be difficult for search engine spiders to naturally find the pages.
Sitemaps are also important for large sites. A sitemap can help ensure all of the pages are found and indexed.
Although there are a few types of websites that can benefit more than others, the bottom line is every website should have an XML sitemap.
Google has stated that sitemaps can only be beneficial. A website will never be penalized for including a sitemap.
How do I make a sitemap?
If you want to get technical, sitemaps are created using metadata. You can view the specifications at sitemaps.org.
However, it isn’t necessary to manually build a sitemap.
If you’re using WordPress, you can generate a sitemap with the Yoast SEO plugin. The nice thing about this is when you create a new post Yoast will update your sitemap. That way it stays current and you aren’t stuck updating it every week.
Since WordPress 5.5, an XML sitemap is actually included with the core WordPress installation. This is a very basic sitemap. It’s certainly better than nothing, but it’s still best to use Yoast SEO to easily customize sitemap content. If you enable the Yoast SEO sitemap, it will automatically disable the default WordPress sitemap so you don’t have to worry about duplicates.
If you aren’t using WordPress you can still generate a sitemap. You can use XML-Sitemaps.com. You simply insert your website URL and they’ll create your sitemap. Once you have your sitemap file you’ll want to upload it to your website file server.
If you’re using WordPress for your blog and a different system for your main website you can use both of these tools. You can have multiple sitemaps. Run the XML-Sitemaps.com generator and remove any pages on your WordPress install. Then, install and configure Yoast SEO as well.
Should every page be in my sitemap?
The goal of your sitemap is to indicate to search engines which pages you want them to index. So, don’t include pages in your sitemap that aren’t useful for a user.
Most pages should be in your sitemap. The few exceptions may be tag or category pages. Content Management Systems, such as WordPress, automatically generate pages when you create new tags and categories. For a new site, you may have tag pages that only contain one post. In these cases, that page probably isn’t useful to a user.
If you find pages that aren’t useful for a user you’ll want to do more than remove them from the sitemap. You want to inform the search engine spiders that you don’t want them indexed. To do this, add a noindex followmeta tag to the page.
What noindex follow tells the search engines is: do not index this page on your search engine, but any links you find on this page you can follow and index them.
If you’re using WordPress and Yoast SEO, you can indicate this just by selecting it in the advanced settings. (To access advanced settings scroll down to the bottom of the SEO menu and click the Advanced dropdown.)
If you are using a different system, you can indicate this by adding the following meta tag to the head section of the page.
<meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX, FOLLOW">
How do I submit my sitemap to search engines?
Submit sitemap to Google
To submit your sitemap to Google, use the Google Search Console. Navigate to Index > Sitemaps. Under Add a new sitemap, enter the sitemap URL and click Submit.
If you have multiple sitemaps, repeat this process to add each of them. If you have a sitemap index, you can just submit the index.
Submit sitemap to Bing
To submit your sitemap to Bing, use the Bing Webmaster Tools. Navigate to Sitemaps. Then click Submit sitemap, enter your sitemap URL, and click Submit.
And just like with Google, if you have multiple sitemaps enter them all with Bing as well. But again, if you have a sitemap index you can just enter the index URL.
Once you’ve submitted your sitemaps to the search engines you’ll likely see the number of indexed pages increase.
Did you see a lift in traffic after submitting a sitemap? Did you run into any sitemap issues? Let us know in the comments!
Do you want to listen to this article? Here’s the podcast episode:
AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. AMP is an initiative backed by Google to streamline mobile content to optimize page speed. AMP has strict guidelines that allows pages to load lightning fast.
This is similar to standard HTML but there are a few AMP specific tags.
AMP JS
The AMP JS handles the rendering and speed optimizations for AMP pages.
AMP Cache
This is the Google Content Delivery Network that is used to deliver the final AMP pages to the user.
You can view AMP implementation details on the AMP Project website.
How does AMP affect Google rankings?
In mobile search you will see an AMP icon next to AMP page results. It looks like a lightning bolt. This is meant to indicate to the user that the page is lightning fast.
Faster is better. Page speed has been a factor in search rankings for years. However, using AMP does not necessarily boost search rankings.
AMP creates a fast experience, and speed can boost rankings. But, a fast responsive website can also see boosted search rankings.
So, as it stands right now, AMP doesn’t improve search rankings, but site speed does. And, since Google uses a mobile-first index any improvements to mobile search rankings can affect desktop search rankings.
Does AMP create duplicate content?
Unless you create your website entirely using AMP (which seems risky at this point), your AMP pages will be duplicates of your existing pages.
These duplicate pages don’t hurt search rankings.
They do however make it more difficult when it comes to site maintenance. Now you’ll have two pages to update and optimize.
Should I use AMP?
Like so many digital marketing questions, the answer is: it depends.
Look at Competitors
Perform a Google search on a mobile device for some of your target keywords. Look at the competitors ranking for those terms. Are they using AMP? Do you see the AMP symbol next to their listing?
If all of your competitors use it, it may be difficult for you to compete without it.
Look for a Plugin
If you’re using a CMS such as WordPress, now you can use the AMP plugin. This will streamline the process for your website and may make it worthwhile.
Think about Your Goals
Think about the goals for your business. What priorities do you need to focus on to move the needle? Does AMP help you reach your goals or is it a shiny object distracting you from your target?
Here’s Why I’ve Decided to Wait on AMP
I agree that pagespeed is an important piece of the user experience but I’ve decided to hold off on AMP implementation for now.
I’ve always believed that the best route for long term SEO success is to do what’s best for the users in your community. At this point, I don’t think I can implement AMP and follow that rule.
I believe that the desktop experience should be great as well, not only the mobile experience. This is why I’ll continue to focus on having a responsive website and optimize pagespeed for every device.
Additionally, AMP URLs cause some confusion for people. Since they are Google URLs and mobile specific the link is difficult to share with friends or with yourself to access on a desktop device.
Update: Google did release an AMP URL update. Now, using signed exchanges, you can display the original URL instead of the Google URL while retaining AMP instant loading.
There are several benefits for using AMP. However, it is quite a commitment to duplicate pages and learn a new standard. It doesn’t seem to align with my current goals. Optimizing my existing responsive design seems to be a better fit for my business.
I’ve decided to hold off for now and re-evaluate in a year.
What about you? Have you already implemented AMP? Do you plan to use it soon?
Digital marketing is always changing. When you’re busy it can be hard to stay current on algorithm updates and best practices. Here are some of the best digital marketing resources. Whether you want to stay up-to-date or you’re trying to learn digital marketing these will help.
One of the best tips I can give you is to try and create a routine to stay current on digital marketing. Don’t overwhelm yourself. Try to incorporate some digital marketing news into your daily or weekly routine.
To start, choose one of the following sources that will fit best with your existing habits. If you find more time, add more sources.
If you start by subscribing to everything at once you’ll end up ignoring everything. Don’t do this, it’s pointless. If you don’t like the first source, drop it and try another. Create a stream of sources that work for you.
Podcasts
Podcasts are a great way to stay current on marketing trends. You can listen during a commute, while you’re cooking dinner, doing chores, or going for a walk. And to be more efficient, I recommend listening at 1.5 speed. It takes a bit to get used to, but once you do you won’t want to switch back.
There are tons of marketing podcasts. You may be able to find one for your specific niche. My favorite marketing related podcasts are Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield, Search Off The Record, Marketing Over Coffee, Authority Hacker, Akimbo, Nudge, and The Jasmine Star Show.
Listening to Amy is an easy and enjoyable way to learn about new digital marketing tactics. Her content is directed specifically to online course creators, but almost all of it is useful to anyone interested in online marketing.
Most of what she teaches is based on her own experience with the topic. Because of that, each episode feels authentic and genuine. The episodes are sometimes interviews and other times it’s only her. In either case, she comes prepared and provides actionable advice.
This podcast is created by people who work on the Search Relations Team at Google. These are people who actually can play a role to impact search ranking, talking about search ranking. Most of their examples are hypothetical. Instead of saying what you need to do, they discuss what they think makes the most sense for how search should be handled. This is really interesting information and helps provide insight into how to handle optimizing your site so it will have long-term ranking benefits as Google continues to improve the algorithm.
These guys do a good job of recapping some of the big changes in the digital marketing industry. The episodes are pretty short (around 25 minutes) which makes this a convenient way to stay up-to-date when you don’t have much time.
Many times they’ll have a guest with a pretty big name. Other times the hosts, John Wall and Christopher Penn, chat with each other. Either way, it’s an interesting half hour and worth the time.
This podcast is all about affiliate marketing. I don’t focus much on affiliate marketing but I decided to give this show a try for that very reason. I wanted to stay current on the aspects of digital marketing that I don’t dedicate much time to.
It turns out, this podcast is very useful for all digital marketers. Even if they don’t focus on affiliate marketing. Many episodes can apply to other marketing fields such as content marketing and SEO.
Gael Breton and Mark Webster do a great job of discussing best practices. They tend to explain topics in a very simple, easy to understand language. This is helpful for any level of marketer.
This podcast is by Seth Godin. Need I say more? Probably not, but I will anyways.
This is an amazing podcast that makes you think. Each episode is intriguing and brings up excellent points.
This show doesn’t discuss technical changes but instead discusses important marketing principles. This may not help you stay current on trends but it will make you a better marketer.
This podcast helps explain the psychology behind marketing tactics. Each episode digs into a psychological principle, explains what it is, and how it can help you become a better marketer. Each episode is interesting and typically includes actionable insights.
This is now my primary podcast to stay on top of social. Now, this show includes so much more than social, but if there’s an important social change that will certainly be covered. Jasmine covers a wide range of topics that are helpful for solopreneurs. Sometimes the episodes are coaching sessions with personalized advice, sometimes it’s an interview, and sometimes it’s just her. No matter what is covered in the particular episode, it is sure to have some nuggets of business advice that you can benefit from.
Of course, I have to mention my own podcast. The DIY SEO Tips podcast has short episodes that discuss various inbound marketing tactics. It covers topics on SEO, social media, digital analytics, content marketing, and conversion optimization. If you create content online and want to grow your audience, you should check out this podcast.
RSS Feeds
If you follow blogs and already use an RSS feeder, such as Feedly, add some digital marketing related blogs. My favorite digital marketing blogs are Quick Sprout, Backlinko, and Conversion XL.
This blog is by Neil Patel. This is a great way to stay on current on best practices for all aspects of digital marketing.
These posts are thorough and offer material that is useful to any level of marketer. Most of the articles are long but have several subheadings and bullets so you can scan the article. That way you can find the content that is most useful to you.
This blog is by Brian Dean. These articles are in depth and incredibly well researched. The blog isn’t updated as frequently as some as the others and when you read the articles you can quickly understand why.
The quality is top-notch. Both the content and the design make these articles interesting and a must add subscription to your RSS feeds.
Conversion Rate Optimization is important for all digital marketers. It’s always interesting to learn about marketing psychology and what makes people convert. This is a great blog to follow to learn from case studies and research that can improve conversion rates.
Email
If you prefer to get a daily digest in your email check out SearchCap from Search Engine Land or Marketing Day from Marketing Land. I’d choose only one as they have some overlap. These daily digests provide a nice overview of the most important marketing articles.
Even if you only end up reading the headlines this will help you stay more current than nothing. When there’s a big change you won’t miss it. You’ll see it pop up in many article headlines day after day. When that happens, I’d recommend reading one and making sure you understand how it impacts you.
Conclusion
Don’t over do it. Choose a method you’ll actually pay attention to and not ignore. None of these will help you stay current if you don’t have the time to pay attention to them. So, start simple.
Do you have a digital marketing resource you love that I didn’t mention? Please let me know in the comments.
Do you want to listen to this article? Here’s the podcast episode:
Marketing personas can be a powerful tool. However, for them to be useful you don’t just make them and check them off the list. You need to keep them in mind any time you write copy.
Let’s discuss what a persona is, why you should use one, and go over how to create them.
What are Marketing Personas?
A marketing persona outlines the exact person you’re trying to reach. The persona is a profile that describes the demographics, goals, and frustrations of your target audience.
Why Use Personas?
Personas help you talk to the audience you want to target.
With a persona, you know exactly who you are talking to. So, in all of your copy, whether it’s a blog, product page, or an ad, you are talking to the exact person you want your message to resonate with.
This allows you to amaze and delight one person, instead of boring everybody.
If you write copy to try and appeal to everyone, it will be vague and uninteresting to all. Conversely, if you are talking to one individual person, you can be very specific and speak their language.
Talking to that one person you care about is how you will be able to write persuasive copy that actually converts.
And ultimately, if you talk specifically to that one person, you will attract a group of like-minded individuals. Talking to one individual person is the best way to attract a group of similar people.
How Do I Make a Persona?
You want your persona to tell a story.
Add enough detail to your persona that you get a clear image in your mind of the customer.
Download the marketing persona Google Sheets template below to get started fast!
Look at the Data
Start by looking at the data you have. Google Analytics, Facebook, and Twitter can all provide valuable insights.
Google Analytics
Go to your Google Analytics account and look at the demographics and interests.
To view the demographics, go to Reports > Audience > Demographics > Overview. This will show you the age and gender of your users.
To view interests, go to Reports > Audience > Interests > Overview. This will show you categories of various interests your users may have.
Facebook
Review Facebook Insights.
To view Insights, go to your Facebook company page and click the Insights tab at the top. Click on People to view demographic data such as age, gender, location, and language.
Twitter
Look at Twitter Analytics.
Sign in to Twitter Analytics. Click on Audiences at the top. This will show you gender, interests, and location data for your followers.
Interview Employees
If you happen to have employees, talk to them. Specifically the ones who interact with customers such as support reps. Find out who they are talking to and who they see as the ideal customer.
If you don’t have employees, put yourself in those shoes. When you speak to customers or prospects who are they? What are their pains or frustrations?
Survey Customers
Send out a survey to your existing customers.
Ask demographic information such as age and gender and also business information such as job title.
Document Findings in a Profile
Once you have your data it’s time to put it all together.
This is when you’ll actually create your personas. The fields you add to your persona will vary depending on your business goals and the data you uncovered.
The fields that I’d recommend adding are:
Name
Job Title
Decision Maker?
This field only requires a Yes or No response. If this persona is not a decision maker, you’ll want to create an additional persona for the person who will be responsible for making the decision. You’ll want to make sure you have copy in place to convince both parties.
Personal Background
Age
Gender
Location
Family
Business Background
Salary
Education
Goals
Frustrations
Information Sources
Where does this person look for information? Are there specific websites or locations they frequent?
How can [company] offer support?
What can your company do to help this person accomplish their goals and overcome their frustrations?
Ready to create your personas?
Simply download the Google Sheets marketing persona template and fill in the blanks.
These fields are a good place to start. Add or remove any items you’d like until you can clearly visualize your customer. Remember, you want your persona to tell a story. This will help you visualize and easily remember them so keep adding information until you have a solid picture in place.
Are there any additional fields you like adding to your personas? Let us know in the comments!
Do you want to listen to this article? Here’s the podcast episode:
Looking for a way to have a large impact on your website conversions? You should be looking into conversion rate optimization. This tactic is becoming one of the most popular strategies to move the needle in your business.
When you think of conversion rate optimization, you probably think of a/b split testing, multivariate testing, and user testing. Don’t get me wrong, those are some excellent tactics and some of my favorite conversion optimization tools. However, depending on your budget and your website traffic, sometimes those tools aren’t a good match for your business.
So what do you do if you want to apply some conversion optimization strategies to your website but you’re a startup with low traffic and zero budget? You stick to the basics, start with best practices. Honestly, even if you have the budget, best practices are still a great place to begin.
Here are some of the tried and true conversion optimization strategies you can apply to your landing pages.
1. Reduce Form Fields
This is one of the most basic rules of conversion optimization, reduce form fields to increase your conversion rate.
Getting data is great, but is it worth missing out on conversions? Remove anything that isn’t 100% necessary. This is sometimes a struggle. Instead of looking at each field and asking if it’s required, start with just one field. Can we limit this to only email address? Think about how you can make it happen. The answer might be absolutely not, we have to have a minimum of email, name, and company. Okay, great! We just got rid of business type, phone number, and location.
Try to keep your forms with between 1-3 fields. This won’t always be possible, but just keep it in mind as you’re creating forms and trying to improve your conversion rate.
Everyone wants to know what the best color is for a call-to-action button. Is it orange, is it green? The answer is: it depends. Don’t get me wrong, color is important. But, when it comes to a call-to-action button, contrast is more important than the actual color.
The key is to make sure the button stands out and is a contrasting color to the background and the rest of the site. As long as the call-to-action button is noticeable, the color isn’t as important. The one color you should stay away from is grey. Grey buttons look like they’re inactive and aren’t as likely to be clicked.
3. Your CTA should describe the action
Write the text on your call-to-action button so it finishes the sentence “I want to…” Clearly describe what will happen when the user clicks that button. Not only does this help manage the user’s expectations, it also helps increase the conversion rate.
4. Keep a CTA Button Above the Fold
Even today, people still don’t scroll down. Make it easy for users to see your primary call-to-action as soon as the page loads. Keep that in mind for both desktop and mobile. If the page is long, repeat the call-to-action at the bottom or in the middle, or both if it’s long enough to be useful.
5. Use Unique Relevant Images – Not Stock Photos
Having images is important. But, more specifically, having unique custom images is important. Stock images seem like a great idea, they save you time and money, but they don’t add value. Stock images are seen over and over again. The same images are not only used on numerous websites, but also on billboards, ads on buses, and magazine ads. Whether users consciously recognize them or not, their brains have already seen the images and they are subliminally ignoring them.
Take the time to get a custom image. If you can take a photo yourself, do it. If you can take screen shots of your product to create images, do that. Do what you need to get some high-quality custom images. It will go a long way with establishing trust with your users and increasing conversion rates.
If you use a stock photo, try to edit the image to include your branding. This can be done a few different ways. You can overlay an image of your product on a device or computer. You can adjust the overall image color or saturation to match the tone of your brand. You can crop the photo in a particular way and embed it in a template for your brand.
Editing photos doesn’t need to be difficult and you don’t need to be a Photoshop expert. All of these examples below were done using an online tool called Canva. Canva has a ton of pre-built templates and elements that make it simple for anyone to design a graphic.
6. Include a Sense of Urgency
Finding a way to include a sense of urgency helps increase conversion rate. There are several ways you can go about doing this. You can include a limited time offer with a countdown. You can show inventory numbers and display only X left. You can display how many other people are watching this same item.
Carry the idea of the sense of urgency into your call-to-action buttons as well. Use words like “Now” and “Today” to stress the urgency.
7. Include Social Proof
People like what their friends like. People like knowing that this product has helped someone just like them. Add testimonials that your key demographic can easily identify with. Make it clear that this is a product for people like them.
Another way to add social proof is sharing your social media metrics. Show how many followers you have. You can also show user metrics specific to your product to help show that your product has helped many people just like them.
8. Add Trust Symbols
If your company has any affiliation with known brands, make sure you advertise that on your site. Were you mentioned in any popular publications? Have big brands used your product? Do you integrate with recognized brands?
Share those logos that people will recognize. They might have not heard of your brand, but if you can add a brand to your site that they have heard of, they’ll trust you more.
Be careful, logos can steal a lot of attention. They’re important to have, but you don’t want them to steal the focus from your call-to-action. Consider de-saturating them so they are gray-scale. That way, people can see them and identify the brands, but they don’t capture too much attention.
9. Make it Easy for Users to Contact You
Clearly list your contact information on your website. Don’t make users have to search around for a way to contact you. Even users who aren’t actively looking to contact you are comforted when they notice how easy it is to get in touch when needed.
How you add your contact information is up to you. You can add your phone number in the header or you can add your full address and phone number in the footer. You can have a live online chat option that floats in the bottom corner of the screen. I’d recommend a minimum of including a “contact” link in your main navigation. On the contact page you can include any contact details you’d like your users to have as well as a webform to make it easy for users to send you a message.
10. Include Persuasive Copy – A USP and Benefit Statements
Make sure to include copy above the fold that clearly describes the benefit of your product to the user. Why should they choose you? Include your unique selling proposition (USP) at the top with your headline text. Remember to not only list features (what the product can do) but also include the benefits (what the product accomplishes).
Unbounce.com offers a great guide that describes not only how to include these items, but where on the landing page they should be placed.
Try to incorporate elements in your landing page design that stimulate an emotional response. One of the emotions you can aim for is happiness. Try adding cute animals to your design. Or, include images of happy smiling people. If those items don’t work with your brand or the particular page, try adding bright colors.
Show Pain Points
Another emotion you can try to capture is pain and frustration. Remind users about the irritation they want to avoid. Once you’ve done that, tie it in by making it clear how you’ve solved their problem.
Conclusion
Hopefully these best practices give you a nice place to start with your conversion optimization. Once you build up your traffic and your budget start testing some of these assumptions. Best practices are a great place to start, but remember, your audience could have a different preference.
Do you have any conversion optimization tips to add to this list? Any interesting insights from split tests you’ve performed on these items? Let us know in the comments.
So, you have a website and you already have Google Analytics setup and tracking your data. That’s a great start! But, you want to start tracking more. You want to find out who clicks what on your site and which elements are critical in the conversion process. You’d like to determine which campaigns are performing the best and sending qualified traffic to your site.
You can and certainly should do all of this. To accomplish this, you would use a combination of UTM tags and event tracking. It’s important to understand the difference between these tracking methods so you don’t override any data erroneously.
The first thing you need to understand is that UTM tags are used to track external links and events are used to track internal links. UTM tags are intended to track acquisitions from your campaigns; whereas, events are meant to track elements within your web property. This becomes apparent when you review your data. In Google Analytics, the data from UTM tags will appear in the Campaigns section which is under Acquisition. While Events appear under Behavior. And in Google Analytics 4 (GA4), UTM tags appear in the Acquisition reports and Events appear under Engagement.
UTM Tags are Used for External Sources
Only use UTM tags on external links. Don’t use UTM tags on internal links that go from one page of your website, to another page on the same website. Adding UTM tags to internal links will override the original referrer source and medium. So, if a user got to your website from the source of Google, and then clicked on an internal link with a UTM tag that included a source of YourSite; Google Analytics would override the original referral source of Google, with the new referral source of YourSite.
Does this mean you would never use a UTM tag on your website? No, you can use a UTM tag on a link on your website if it links to a different website. If it goes to a different website then it is an external link. You should know though, that this would not actually provide any Google Analytics data for you, unless you also own the other domain. To capture clicks on the link and collect data on the original website, you could add an event. If the site you’re referring to also needs to track this information you can still include the UTM tag. If the link on your website is an external link you can track it by using both a UTM tag and an event. The event will track the click under Behavior on your site, and the UTM tag will track the click under Acquisition on the site you sent the traffic to.
It can get confusing to understand when and if you should add a UTM tag to a link on your own website. To help understand when it’s appropriate, refer to the flowchart below.
Use UTM Tags to Track Campaign Efforts
UTM tags are a terrific way to track campaign performance. Tracking marketing campaigns across various networks is what UTM tags should be used for. You can add UTM tags to links in e-mail campaigns, social media posts, and paid ads.
When you add a UTM tag, you’ll be adding more details to your Google Analytics data. You’ll be able to see campaign performance metrics that would not be available otherwise. This will help you determine which marketing efforts are having an impact.
How Do UTM Tags Work?
UTM tags work by appending parameters to your URL to identify the source, medium, and campaign. Google provides a Campaign URL Builder that makes it easy to add UTM tags to your URL. If you want to know which parameters to add and why, and how to keep your data clean and tidy, view our guide on how to create a UTM code.
Events are Used for Internal Tracking
If you want to track internal links on your website or track an interaction someone is taking while they are navigating your website, that is when you want to leverage events in Google Analytics.
You can add an event to links or buttons. So, you can capture external site referrals, form submissions, downloads, video plays, and just about any other interaction on your website. And, when you add an event interaction it’s easy to associate an event with a goal in Google Analytics.
This allows us to stay on top of the interactions that play a key role on our website. If you have a podcast, you can add an event to the podcast play button on embedded players on your website. Then, you can add podcast plays as a goal for your website. If you have a YouTube channel, you can add an event to the video play button on embedded YouTube videos. Then, you can add a goal for video plays. If you are an affiliate marketer, you can track your outbound referral clicks with an event and set up referral clicks as a goal.
What this does is allow us to get more visibility into our website visitors and leverage our Google Analytics data to it’s full potential. This makes it easier to make informed decisions so we know what to improve and what efforts we should prioritize.
How Do Events Work?
There are a few different ways you can add events to elements on your website. You can add them using Google Tag Manager. You can also add them manually. If you would like step-by-step directions on how to add events you can view our complete guide on how to track events in Google Analytics.
Does this Apply to GA4
Yes, even though events play a larger role in Google Analytics 4 than in Universal Analytics, the difference between UTM tags and events still functions the same. UTM tags still provide data in GA4 and all of the rules we discussed in this article apply both to GA4 and Universal Analytics.
UTM Tags vs Events
So, in conclusion, UTM tags should be used to track campaign performance from sources outside of your website, and events should be used to better understand interactions on your website. UTM tags help to better track acquisition sources, whereas events help to better track user behavior.
How do you use UTM tags and event tracking? Feel free to share any of the tips or tricks you’ve learned to get the most value out of these items.
Do you want to listen to this article? Here’s the podcast episode:
We all know that content is king. And, to rank well in Google search results, your site needs to have high-quality content. Creating the level of content that is required to dominate the search results is tough work. That’s why, when you create a content piece that is successful, you should repurpose the content by modifying it to take advantage of other formats. Let’s look at Disney to get a better idea of how this tactic works.
What is Content Repurposing?
Before we get too far, let’s talk a bit about what it means to repurpose content. Repurposing content is the act of changing one type of content to fit into another content format. Typically this tactic is specifically used on your top performing content pieces. For example, if your top blog post is a list article on the Top 5 Beers to Drink with Chocolate Chip Cookies, you can repurpose it by creating a video using the information in the article. You can also take the content and create an infographic so the content can easily be viewed as a graphic.
When you repurpose it in this manner, you can get your content in front of a larger audience by putting the content on a channel appropriate for the content type. In the prior example, the original blog would be on your company website, the video could be on YouTube, and the image can be on Pinterest or Instagram. You can even break the infographic into 5 small images to highlight each list item. The video and infographic can live on your company website as well, but adding them to additional networks will provide you with exposure to an audience you may not have otherwise had.
So… What Does Disney Have to Do with Repurposing Content?
Of course, Disney is amazing at everything they do. But, whether you realize it or not, Disney is also the master of repurposing content. You may be thinking of all of the merchandise and toys related to their movies. Granted, the merchandise is a smart move on their part, however, for the purpose of this article we’re going to look specifically at content and media formats.
The Same Great Story in More than 5 Different Formats
What happens when Disney creates a successful movie such as Finding Dory? They take that same great story that people loved, and repurpose it into additional formats for more people to enjoy. You can buy five different Finding Dory books, they all have different covers, they are different sizes, and they appear to be different books. The question is, do they include different stories? Do they have more backstory or are they short stories that just use the same characters? The answer is, no, they are all the same story. It’s the story that has already proven to be a winner but told in a format that the user wants to view.
Let’s dig deeper into these five different books and figure out how they were able to create so many different products using the same story.
Board Book – The first book is a board book. This is an extremely simplified version of the story meant for a very young audience.
Coloring Book – The next book is a coloring book. This format has a few more words than the prior format but it still only has one sentence on each page. It’s the same story, but on a format that allows for coloring and enjoying the story in a different way.
Sound Book – The sound book format continues the trend of offering a book for a young audience, and keeps the same successful story, but adds buttons to hear sounds during relevant places of the story. This allows for people to not only read but also hear parts of the story. Additionally, they get to interact and participate by clicking the buttons during the appropriate part of the story.
Paper Book – Moving to an older audience, you can get the story as a book with paper pages. The pages have more words on them and the content is longer than the prior formats, yet it still consists of the same overall story.
Collector’s Edition – The Collector’s Edition is yet another format with the same great story. This version can be loved by children and adults alike. This format has a classic and expensive look with silver lined pages. The stories are longer than any of the prior formats, but again, it is the same story.
Not only can you find numerous storybooks to portray the same story, but you can find multiple movies. Disney has been re-releasing some of the classic movies as remastered digital Blu-rays. This is a new format to consume the same content you loved before. Why would people buy the same movie again? Because the new format is easier and more enjoyable to consume.
You can now see Disney taking this a step further. If you look at Beauty and the Beast, you have the classic animated movie and now you have a live action (non animated) version. Again, the new version uses the same great story that has already proven to work. The changes are fairly subtle to make the story work with the new content format.
How Can Disney Make So Many Different Formats and Not Annoy People?
Simple, they understand their demographic. They understand that their content is loved by people of all ages and they make sure there’s a format available for the wide range of users. They also understand the level of attachment their users have towards their content. They’re able to leverage the nostalgic feeling of their stories to justify additional formats. The feeling of nostalgia is what helped the live action Beauty and the Beast to be so successful and why they need to provide so many formats for the younger audience as parents want to introduce these stories to their children in a format their child will love.
What Can We Learn From Disney?
Have a method to introduce your content such as a blog on your company website. Identify which content pieces are popular and enjoyed. Identify different formats your audience regularly uses to consume content. Repurpose your top performing content to leverage those additional format types.
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